For an electronic device such as a portable terminal apparatus, a housing thereof may be foldably configured by coupling a housing unit on the operation side and a housing unit on the display side with a hinge unit to enhance operationality and portability. In such a case, circuit substrates individually disposed on the housing units must be connected by a signal line and a sealing structure disposed with an O-ring, etc., is individually used for each of the housing units.
For such a sealing structure, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-93510 discloses an electronic apparatus including a stationary side housing and a moving side housing which are foldably coupled to each other and electronic components in the housings connected by a flexible cable (Abstract, FIG. 1, etc.). In this electronic apparatus, a cable case is mounted on an insertion opening formed for allowing passage of a flexible cable through a gasket; a flexible cable is mounted through an insertion hole formed in the cable case; a spacer is attached to the flexible cable; and a space formed between the flexible cable and an inner wall of the insertion hole by this spacer is defined as a seal agent receiving space to fill this space with a seal agent.
International Publication Pamphlet No. WO03/085793 A1 discloses that a sealing is formed by filing a gap to be sealed with liquid rubber for a sealing structure including a flat cable (Abstract, FIG. 1, etc.).
The sealing structure disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-93510 has the gasket and a signal line separated between the housings and has a configuration sealing the cable cover and the signal line by inserting the signal line through the insertion hole provided in a rising wall of the housing and disposing the cable cover using elastomer and an O-ring for a gap between the insertion hole and the signal line, and the disposition of the cable cover requires a process of sealing a gap between the cable and the housing with a seal agent.
The sealing structure using the cable and rubber (International Publication Pamphlet No. WO03/085793 A1) must force passage of a plurality of signal lines in the case of advanced electronic devices with improved functions and may not support such a case.
To electronic devices such as portable terminal apparatuses, various requests are made such as a request for sealing performance such as high-level waterproof due to expanded use environment, miniaturization in association with portability and operationality, increase in complexity of signal lines between housings due to higher functionality such as a communication function and an information processing function, and reduction in cost for dissemination and such a request is also made for a sealing structure.
If the sealing structure and the miniaturization of electronic devices are attempted to be implemented with the configuration disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-93510, the thickness of the housing is increased due to the intervention of the thicknesses of the signal line, the sealing, the cable case, and the O-ring in the housing thickness direction because the connector cover is disposed between the housing members and, in the cable width direction, a connector unit of the signal line must pass through the cable cover and the occupied width consists of the coupling portion width corresponding to the number of the signal lines, the sealing width on the edge sides of the signal lines, the wall thickness of the cable case, and the O-ring thickness. Therefore, the sealing structure causes an obstacle for the miniaturization of the apparatus.
If the sealing is achieved around the signal line, the sealing processing is delayed by the operation of applying the seal agent and the drying time of the seal agent, reducing the productivity of devices. If a plurality of cables are used, a spacer must be mounted and a retaining operation thereof is added.
The sealing process requires filling of the seal agent for the cable and the cable cover at the same time and such an operation is complicated and reduces the workability.
Such problems occur not only in the configuration disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-93510 but also in electronic devices including portable terminal apparatuses, etc.
Such problems are not disclosed and a means for solving the problems is not disclosed or indicated in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-93510 and International Publication Pamphlet No. WO03/085793 A1.